The journey takes you around in circles, sometimes, but you always learn a new lesson.

onMonday, September 10, 2018

You know my life has been hard recently. This is the most difficult year I’ve had to live though, actually. And I think that in times like these, we forget certain parts of our normal self-care, self-talk, or other skills we’ve learned along the journey.

It’s a strange sort of growth I’ve been doing in the past couple of years. It’s where I’ve finally embraced that I don’t have to be 100% happy with how my body looks just because I’m a body positivity blogger and advocate. I used to struggle to be a good role model, but it just wasn’t authentic to who I am. Ironically, I’m actually – finally – more comfortable with my body than I ever have been, despite also being at a higher weight than I ever have been. So I’ve done a sort of roundabout way to grow that part of me, taking a couple of steps backwards (maybe… and maybe not) and a few more forwards.

But somehow, despite that, I’ve lost my positive self-talk.

I struggle every day right now because I am simply weighed down with too many Things to handle and many of them are Big Things.

A good friend once commented that antidepressants are like a life raft. You still have to do the work to get yourself to shore (or, for lifelong depression, down the river of life), but they keep you afloat so that you can do the work to get yourself where you need to go. That’s so real for me. But right now, all those Big Things are also on my raft and I cannot begin to move forward because I am just trying to keep us all afloat.

I have forgotten to remind myself, every day, of all the ways in which I am worthy; I have lost my positive self-talk.

That’s allowed the demons back in and all I can see is all the ways in which I am failing at things (um, like this website, for one?). What’s worse, is that I’ve entirely forgotten how it’s not shameful to be a woman who is proud of the work she does. I’ve become meek in this way recently. But the truth is that it is right, correct, to be proud of me, to take pride in me, and it’s fucking badass feminist warrior woman to do it publicly.

So here’s what I am going to do, and I hope that you will join me. In fact I ask you to join me because I could use your support. Let’s name all the ways in which we are worthy. Today, right now. And then tomorrow. And the next day. We can come together to create a safe space where we will know that we can say whatever good things about ourselves that we want without any fear of looking ‘conceited” or full of ourselves, or whatever other bullshit the patriarchy has taught us to silence us. Are you in?

I’ll go first:
-I fight every day for my kids, for their rights and their needs to be met.
-I have gone back to college, I am about to graduate, and I’ve earned only 2 B’s in the last five years!
-I spend time with my children each day, listening to them, laughing with them, and helping them to find solutions to problems, and helping them learn how to cope with the shit life throws at us.
-I keep going. Sometimes I crash, cry, scream, and sleep. But then I get back up and I keep going.
-I paid the bills this month.
-I have kept us fed.
-I have done laundry, and the house is… not the worst I’ve seen. (haha!)
-I have done exercise consistently these last couple of weeks.

Every day I do little things and huge things. I am proud of me for every single one of them, no matter how small. Because they are all work, and they are all worthy.

How about you? This can be body-related or not, because our esteem is tied to our surfaces as well as our hearts and minds, and each reflects on the other and affects it’s growth or stagnation. What are you proud of? Tell us here!